The cranky spirituality of a postmodern Gal.
Emerging church ala Luther.

House for All Sinners and Saints

House for All Sinners and SaintsI am the mission developer for House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. We are an urban liturgical community with a progressive yet deeply rooted theological imagination. Check out our site for more info.

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Nadia Bolz-Weber (that's me!): Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian TelevisionHere's my book. You should buy it.

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The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.2As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,who will prepare your way;3the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:'Prepare the way of the Lord,make his paths straight,'"4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

So, in the spirit of full disclosure I feel you should know that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a crazy street corner preacher who waves her Bible wildly while shouting red faced at passer-bys. Repent! This may come as a shock. And I’m not ruling it out as a possible career move in the future. But (for now) as an outsider to the crazy street corner preacher world, I must say I feel for those guys. Because what could their success rate possibly be? I mean, does shouting repent! at people actually work? just speaking for myself, never once has my life changed because a crazy guy with a sign yelled at me from a street corner.

I mention this because it feels like maybe John the Baptist was the first and last successful crazy street corner preacher. And given the success he had, you know, with all of Judea and Jerusalem coming to partake in his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, I wonder what the guy said exactly? Why did so many people come to him for his baptism? Because bless their hearts, but, our modern street corner preachers who hold signs that say “repent” don’t have near the same results at all.

Maybe you feel like I do, namely that when I hear a preacher shouting “repent” what I really hear is he or she saying is Stop being bad. Start being good or else God’s gonna be real mad at you. Which feels like more of a threat than anything else. That just never works on me. Who wants their spiritual arm twisted until they cry Uncle….it’s like… religious bullying .

And I just can’t imagine that it was religious bullying which brought all of Judea and Jerusalem to be baptized by John. I mean fear and threat can create change in behavior. No question about it. But it doesn’t really change your thinking. Threats don’t change your heart.

Fot that kind of change…change in thinking and change of heart it takes truth and promise. Namely truth and promise that is external to us and that comes only from God reaching into the graves we dig ourselves and bringing out new life. Because if repentance comes from something other than an external word of truth about who you are and who God is it’s not repentance it’s self-improvement.

And I’m pretty sure that what happened that day by the banks of the Jordon was more than just a massive wave of self-improvement.

So if John came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins then maybe it wasn’t so much so that sinners would confess and stop being bad. maybe it was so that all would hear the truth about this God who comes near to us in the person of Jesus Christ - not so that we might be good but that we might be new. John says to them Prepare the way of the Lord. Get ready for something new. Because, there is one who is coming who will change everything.

And the way in which John the Baptist prepares the people for the Gospel is by making room for it through washing away their old ideas and expectations. The untruth and sin and shame and all competing identities float away in the Jordon because the real thing was finally here. Because in Jesus God is doing a new thing not to make us good but to make us new. See, I believe it was the truth and promise of this Gospel and not religious bullying that compelled repentance and new life from the people of Judea

For this reason I love that Mark’s Gospel opens with: The beginning of the Gospel (that is, the Good news) of Jesus Christ Son of God. If it had been titled the beginning of the Good Short Story of Jesus Christ son of God then it would not be News. What makes it news is that it is something new that is external to us that we have to be told. It is news because it is not anything we could or would ever come up with ourselves. Because any truth that I generate from within me simply doesn’t have the power to save me.

A couple years ago I had a conversation with a family member who is non-religious. “I just don’t really need anything outside of myself to give me meaning or comfort” she said. “really” I answered. “I desperately need something outside of myself because if this is all there is…well, I can’t think of anything more depressing.” I need an external interruption. and I need it a heck of a lot more than I need self-improvement. Because I can actually change my behavior on my own. It’s my thinking and my heart that only God can redeem.

So this week I began to wonder if maybe repentance is giving up on the idea that we can redeem ourselves. Maybe true repentance involves surrender more than it involves self-improvement. Kind of like how the practice of kneeling in church has military origins namely that it was a posture of surrender…as in…you can’t fight if you’re kneeling. And this kind of surrender the kind we see in forgiven sinners in the waters of the Jordon only comes from hearing the truth of who we are and the truth of who God is.

Repentance – which in Greek means something closer to “thinking differently afterwards” than it means change your cheating ways. Of course repentance CAN look like a prostitute becoming a librarian but repentance can also look like a whore saying ok I’m a sex worker and I have no idea how to get out but I can come here and receive bread and wine and maybe if only for a moment I can hold onto the love of God without being deemed worthy of it by anyone but God. Repentance is a con artist being a real person for the first time ever without knowing who that person is anymore but knowing he sees it in the eyes of those serving him communion naming him a Child of God. Repentance is realizing there is more life to be had in being proved wrong than in continuing to think you’re right. Repentance is the adult child of an fundamentalist saying I give up on waiting for my mom to love me for who I am so I’m gonna rely on God to help me love her for who she is because I know she’s not going to be around forever. Repentance is unexpected beauty after a failed suicide attempt. Repentance is a couple weeks ago when the clerk at the Adult bookstore on Colfax teared up and said “your church brought me thanksgiving lunch?”. Repentance is what happened to me when at the age of 28 my first community college teacher told me I was smart and despite all my past experience of myself I believed her. See, repentance is what happens to us when the Good News, the truth of who we are and who God is, enters our lives and scatters the darkness of competing ideas.

For it is the external truth of God that liberates you from the bondage of self. This is what the daily return to baptism looks like. It is like the arm of God reaches in to rip out your own heart and replace it with God’s own. The Gospel is like your own emancipation proclamation. Every time you hear the absolution – that you are forgiven, every time you hear that Christ has come into the world to change everything, every time you hear that you are a child of God and that this is God’s very own body broken and poured out for you. Every time these external words of Good news enter your ears they scatter the darkness of competing claims. And to be sure, all of it is the Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ Son of God. Amen.

Matthew 11:2-11

2When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

7As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Some people when they daydream they daydream about vacations to Europe, or winning the lottery. But I have to confess; when I daydream it’s about things like how cool it would be if someone made a “VH1 Behind the Music” special about John the Baptist. They could feature interviews with Elizabeth and Zechariah while old Photos of young John eating his first locust fade in and out of the background. Then after they could go on to feature his juggernaut of a Prophetic career. The fiery street corner preaching, the sold-out crowds at the Jordon. But then his disciples would inevitably talk about when the problems started. “he just never knew when to stop. The success did weird things to him” they would say. “It was like the pressure of being compared to Elijah got to him” So at this point in my daydream there would be a commercial beak with a teaser. Next on “VH1’s Behind the Music: John the Baptist”, John hits bottom and has a wake up call while in prison.

John the Baptist in our reading tonight from Matthew’s gospel is pretty much at a low point. He is simply not the guy we think of when we hear the name John the Baptist. Gone is the image of the bug eating Wild man shouting repent. Gone is the image of a wild-eyed prophet preparing the way of Lord through his own feral oratories. Gone is the street corner preacher shouting of repentance and fire and brimstone. The screaming and baptizing and preaching to enormous crowds is a distant memory.

Instead we meet John the Baptist today as he sits imprisoned by Herod and wondering if he maybe got this whole thing wrong. I wonder if he seemed…shorter somehow now that he is profoundly less sure of himself. Surely imprisonment can take a few inches off one’s spiritual stature.

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, When John heard that Jesus was not instigating a takeover of the Roman occupation, when John heard that Jesus was not picking off Herod and burning all their enemies with unquenchable fire as John had expected, he loses his faith. And when he loses his faith he starts telling himself his own story.

It was Jesus’ disciple Thomas who ended up with the moniker “Doubting” but it could very well have been John the Baptist. There he sits in a cold dank jail cell with nothing for company but disappointment and his own thoughts. And does he preach from the cell or sing hymns like Paul and Silas? No. He doubts. He wavers. He sinks into disbelief. So much so that he sends his disciples to go ask Jesus “are you the one?”

When I was growing up there was this tradition in my family where on the day before Christmas and the day before Easter my Mom would dutifully approach each of us kids one by one and ask the solemn question. A question – the answer to which would determine if we were to receive presents and candy. With all the fake seriousness she could muster Peggy would ask “Do you still believe?” Facing our mother as though she were an independent tribunal for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny we would without fail answer yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I was reminded of this last week when Tracy posted on my Facebook wall that she had seen a Christmas t-shirt that said you have to believe to receive.

It can be easy to make Christianity into something similar. you have to believe to receive. as though our success as Christians is partly determined by how robust and unyielding is our faith. Yet the one in the Gospels whom Jesus described as the greatest among men and more than a prophet – even John the Baptizer as he sits in prison does so in a state of unbelief.

Bonhoeffer writes that Advent is like this. He says that Advent is like sitting in a prison cell waiting for someone to open the door, waiting for the Word which will release you from prison. The Word that will release you from prison. If God can create from a Word…if God can speak and it is made real, if the Word of God can be made flesh and dwell among us to comfort and save, if God’s Word can do all of this then maybe God’s Word can open our prisons of disbelief. Because when John, the Preacher from the desert, sits in his prison of disillusionment Jesus does not rebuke him for his unbelief. He does not bemoan a perverse and faithless generation … he sends people to tell him what they see and what they hear. Jesus sends the preacher a preacher. He sends others to go tell him the story again and he does so by quoting Isaiah. the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. In John’s moment of disillusionment and despair, in his moment of doubt and isolation when he begins to tell himself his own story Jesus sends people to be his Storyteller. They are sent to bear the story of what they have heard and seen. They speak the Word of God to their own preacher as some of you have done on occasion.

You see, there is no shame in unbelief. In fact, if you are struggling with your faith it’s probably just your turn. The Western individualism in our culture has really done a number on us convincing us that faith is something we must possess in sufficient quantity as individuals, when in fact faith has always been a team sport. When Jesus Said “Where 2 or more are gathered I am with you” I don’t think it meant that like a diva Jesus needs a guaranteed minimum audience before showing up. I think it means that we bear Christ to one another. That we hold the faith on one another’s behalf. That faith is never given in sufficient quantity to individuals it’s given in sufficient quantity to the community. This is what being a people of The Book, people of The Story is all about.

If God forbid something awful happened to one of my children I’m pretty sure I couldn’t believe in God in that moment. I’m sure I would not want to come to church. I certainly wouldn’t be singing hymns of praise and I for sure would be really pissed at God. Would all of this mean that I was no longer be a woman of faith? no. It just means that I would need you to do all of these things for me. Because that’s just how it works. There is no shame in unbelief. In fact, there are times when only in doubting do we begin to take our faith seriously enough for it to be unthreatened.

When you yourselves struggle with what you believe it makes you no less people of faith. About 9 month after this church got going, someone asked if I would go for a walk because there was something they wanted to talk to me about. We circled City Park as they proceeded to tell me with some hesitation that they didn’t have the same theology of baptism than I did. They had different beliefs. After cautiously and painstakingly informing me of this fact I look at them and said “I’m so glad you told me because now I know you better. But please don’t take it personally when I say…I don’t actually care.” I don’t really care what you believe. I care what you hear. Beliefs are fluid and go up and go down. People in this church believe all sorts of stuff. Trust me on that. But we aren’t responsible for making sure we have pure doctrine and right belief about everything…we’re just responsible for hearing the story and telling the story. That’s what we do as the church.

And in this Advent season as we are surrounded by the cacophony of competing stories – some of our own making and some of the consumer culture swirling all around us…may we listen for the Word. listen for the story all around you the story of a God who creates life from a Word and for the story of the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. Tell others of what you see and hear. Because I think Bonhoeffer was right. Advent is like sitting in a prison cell waiting for someone to open the door, waiting for the word, the story, the Christ, the friend, the song, the faith of your brother or sister which will release you. Amen

(We then during Open Space - the time for reflection and prayer that follows the sermon - wrote what prisons we need to be freed from on the paper sky lantern that we then released into the night sky at the end of liturgy. See photo by Amy Clifford above)

In this season in which we find ourselves there is an anticipatory feeling in the air. A waiting, a longing and yearning. This is a time filled with preparations and signs and symbols. Everything leads to this promised future. With our turkey stuffed bellies we awaken from a triptafan induced coma of carbohydrates to the coming of what feels like the end times– For there will be sales and rumors of sales. So stay awake my brothers and sisters, because the doorbusting shopacalypse is upon us. Yet my heart was glad when they said to me let us go at 5a to the house of the Lord and Taylor. For on that holy mountain people will stream from East and West, North and South and all nations will come and they will turn plastic cards into shiny promises of love in the form of bigger plastic and cloth and metal and wire and they will go down from this mountain to wrap their bits of plastic and cloth and metal and wire they will wrap it all in paper to wait for that day. The day of mythical sentimentalized domesticity when the hopes and dreams of love and family and acceptance and perfect, perfect reciprocity will come to pass. And the children shall believe that they shall be always good and never bad for Santa will come like a thief in the night. No one knows the hour so you better be good for goodness sake.

This distorted bogus version of the story of how God entered our world in Christ seems to be playing all around us. It can be difficult to discern the real contours and dimensions of our actual Christian story during a time of the year when TV specials and bill boards and radio ad seem to be kind of telling it. So conflated are the symbols of faith with the symbols of culture that it can be hard to discern the difference. This, this is why I prefer Lent…a season when we are at least not assaulted by doorbuster sales for sack cloth and ashes. The world leaves us quite alone to celebrate that one by ourselves.

But this is it, the first Sunday of Advent. And I invite you to hear again the gospel for today which speaks of the coming of our Lord:

But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

So, as a perfect foil to the noise of cultural Christmas on this first Sunday of Advent we are greeted not with images of the virgin Mary or the soft cooing of a new born savior but with a text my friend Russell described as "the anticipated threat of Jesus kidnapping someone at work and then breaking into my house and robbing me". yes, our gospel text for today will not be alluded to in and Peanuts Christmas specials or sales at Target.

Be ready says Jesus. Be ready. During this season of Advent we talk a lot about wakefulness and waiting and anticipation…which are all lovely. But the thing this text talks about the most…. the quality attributed first to angels, then to Jesus then to you is not longing or watchfulness … it’s the quality of not-knowing. While absolute certainty has long been the hallmark of religion, here we see that perhaps being in a state of emptiness and not-knowing is actually quite hopeful…. since a full cup has no need of more wine or as My Mom used to say “once someone is right about something they stop taking in new information.”

Be ready says Jesus. Be ready. And while it’s easy to assume that being ready is the same as knowing what to look for – I’m pretty sure that when we think we know what to look for we often miss what we were meant to find altogether. So I began to wonder if the angels not knowing, Jesus not knowing, you not knowing and the word “unexpected” might point to something other than putting all our eggs in the “knowing what to look for basket”.

Like when our ears already know the story we might miss the fact that Jesus then says be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. Maybe just maybe being awake, and alert and expectant has nothing to do with knowing and certainty and has a lot to do with being in a state of un-knowing…of having what Richard Rhor calls a beginner’s mind. Maybe we use our knowingness - our certainty we’re right - as a sort of loss-prevention program…a system by which we actually protect ourselves from the unknown and the unexpected. That is to say, maybe it isn’t certainty at all but a spiritual not-knowing that is what “being ready for Jesus” looks like. And maybe to me that’s a little scary.

Because here’s the thing: like the house owner, Knowing what to look for - as a way of avoiding being robbed - is only advantageous if we assume being robbed is a bad thing. Perhaps having an un-knowing beginner brain allows us to be taken unaware by the grace of God…the grace of God which is like a thief in the night. When we actually don’t know what to look for everything that happens to us is the unexpected. Perhaps the good news here is that Jesus has been staking the joint and there will be a break – in. The promise of Advent is that in the absence of knowing we get robbed, that there was and is and will be a break in…because this God in which we live and move and have our being is not interested in our loss-prevention programs but in saving us from ourselves and our culture and even our certainties about the story itself. This holy thief wants to steal from us and maybe that is literal and metaphoric at the same time. Because in this season of pornographic levels of consumption in which our credit card debts rise and our waistbands expand maybe the idea that Jesus wants to break in and jack some of your stuff is really good news. I started thinking this week that maybe we should make Advent lists – kind of like Christmas lists but instead of things we want Santa to bring us, we write down things what we want Christ to take from us. You know, in hopes he could pickpocket the stupid junk in our houses, or abscond with our self-loathing or resentment…maybe break in and take off with our compulsive eating or our love of money in the middle of the night. Don’t you kind of long for God to do something unexpected?

Then as we listen to our sacred story this Advent let us tune out not only the noise of cultural Christmas, but also our own assumptions and expectations about what we think this story means. Let us listen together with beginner’s ears. With ears that listen for God’s surprising grace. The kind of grace which will knock the wind out of you.

Under the cover of a deep blue Advent darkness may Christ, this holy thief, rob you of your certainty about what you think the story of Jesus is all about. May this thieving God envelop you in the surprising story of God’s suffering love which takes from us that which we can really really do without and replaces it all with God’s own self.

Taking inspiration from Rev. Martin Poole and Beyond's Beach Hut Advent Calendar House for All Sinners and Saints undertook to make an Advent Calendar over the days of Advent. Different people in the community made a "day" out of shoe (and other similar sized) boxes. We displayed them on shelves hung between ladders. It was fun to see our calendar grow with new scenes each week.

39In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." 46And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, 47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."\

Again this Wednesday we joined the broader church in singing vespers, the evening prayer which always includes Mary’s song, The Magnificat. We joined Christ’s church and Christ’s mother in singing about the wondrous things God has done in blessing us and in casting the mighty from their thrones and in feeding the hungry and sending the rich away emptySome of you know that the church I went to in High School, and where my parents still attend, is a very theologically and socially conservative congregation in Centennial. It’s, suburban, white, very upper middle class, and privileged. Very privileged. Well a few years ago, over 10 years after becoming a Lutheran and singing the Magnificat in Vespers countless times and really loving how radical it was, I visited my parent’s church and was amazed to see in the worship folder that the closing song was The Magnificat. All through the service I kept thinking “I can’t believe that this wealthy suburban evangelical church is going to sing Mary’s song of the poor being fed and the rich being left hungry”. Finally the moment came. The congregation sang a praise music setting of…and I can’t make this up…the first half of the magnificat. They proudly sang a nice praise song based on the Magnificat about how their soul magnifies the Lord who had looked with favor on them and that generations will call them blessed because the mighty one has done great things and holy is his name.” And then the song ended. I was speechless. Well, not really. As I shook the preachers hand on the way out I said that it was theologically irresponsible to allow a profoundly privileged congregation to sing only the first half of Mary’s song.

They may not know what the Magnificat is about, but I do. I felt pretty proud of that.

Progressives see Mary’s song a bit differently. Mary isn’t a docile picture of obedience singing about how great it is to be pregnant. Mary is singing of nothing less than complete overturning of the social and economic order. She’s basically a first century female Che Guevara calling for revolution. There’s a reason why the magnificat is said to of terrified the Russian Czars. Because, the message is that if you find yourself rich and powerful then… watch out! This young little Jewish girl is not singing about a whole lot of good news for you. But the poor…their time is coming because now the poor will be the rich and the rich will be the poor.

The liberals understand the Magnificat and feel pretty proud of that.

But this explanation sounds more like retribution than redemption. Because when the oppressed become the oppressors then the oppression hasn’t actually gone away. It’s a zero sum gain. It’s the exact same play with the same plot and the same ending…just with a different cast. What Mary sings of is not an endless cycle of retribution, but a total dismantling of the entire system. The child she bears is not coming to make the oppressed the oppressors. He is coming to disrupt the whole notion of oppression itself. And the way in which God accomplishes this in the birth of Christ is the same way in which God accomplishes this in the death of Christ: namely vulnerable love. This divinely vulnerable love is the only way out of our cycle of power and oppression.

This all makes it a bit tough to pull of being prideful about knowing what the Magnificat is really about. For me or for anyone else. Ironically, to be prideful about understanding the Magnificat is to not understand it at all. Perhaps it is pride itself which causes the rich to be sent away empty. And not because God doesn’t want us fed, but because we don’t realize that we’re hungry. Maybe in Mary’s song the wealthy are sent away empty because we simply don’t need God. We’ve got plenty of daily bread and seem to be able to handle most stuff that comes our way. But the truly hungry… carry none of these illusions of self-sufficiency. It is our hunger which God feeds, not our fullness. The rich are left hungry because there is no entry point for God.

Mary’s song is perhaps not about being proud of being chosen by God and perhaps it’s not about pride in the coming reordering of things when she and those like her will finally be the ones in power. Maybe the Magnificat is about the entry points of God’s vulnerable love. The cracks into which the light of the Christ enters our hearts and enters our lives and enters our world. The entry points of God’s vulnerable love are not our pride and power and self-sufficiency and wealth, but our need for God…our hunger for God.It reminds me of the song of another prophet… Leonard Cohen Ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack in everythingThat's how the light gets in.

It’s the cracks that allow the light to enter. These cracks in ourselves and in the world are entry points for God’s redeeming work . The absurdity of Mary: Her insignificance, her poverty, her unwed femaleness, was the perfect crack for the light of Christ to enter. And her kinswoman Elizabeth, this inappropriately pregnant old lady from the hill country was the perfect crack into which the messenger of the light of God to enter.

So the very real suffering in our lives and in our world which makes us question if God is really just, if God is really present, and if the Magnificat is still singable…this suffering is right where God chooses to hang out. Ever since there have been men and women and children who weren’t allowed the dignity of heaven’s children, God has been right there, right next to them, preparing a way out of all that darkness. God has always been like this, and the ones like Mary, the ones who see that truth plainly, finally have all of the world’s power. But this power isn’t the kind we create for ourselves…it’s the power of brokenness and humility. Power-over and retribution and vengeance and oppression be damned. This vulnerable love of God is what claims us and what gives us hope, real hope, in a way that noting else can. Even amidst a world in which we are all very aware that the mighty sit on thrones and the hungry are still hungry we can sing her song. Because Mary doesn’t sing the Magnificat out of ignorance. I’m certain that the reality of empire and oppression and poverty and the abject powerlessness of her very self in her very context was not lost on the mother of our Lord. Quite the opposite. I think she knew. She knew that because of her lowliness and poverty and insignificance - because of this and not in spite of this that God was and is doing an entirely new thing. Never had the poor been so exalted than for God to slip into their skin insistently blessing the whole world in a radical way. She knew you simply can’t speak of such things. They have to be sung.

(blog post script: things change a lot in a few years. My parent's church has a new brilliant young preacher who really loves The Gospel. We meet together once a month with a couple other pastors to talk about our work and our preaching. If someone had told me 5 years ago that one day I would be in a colleague group with my parent's Church of Christ preacher I would have laughed like Sarah. But God is good and not a little mischievous. Anyway, we met this week. He too is preaching on the Magnificat today. The whole thing. May it be a Gospel Word for his people. Amen.)

Luke 1:68-79

68“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
69He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David,
70as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
71that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
72Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant,
73the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us
74that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
75in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.
78By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,
79to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Last Spring at our church retreat Stuart and Krista and Jim and Andie and perhaps some of you busted out in what felt like an interminable Broadway musical sing along. It was cute. Kind of. But honestly it was a little annoying too. Because I had never seen Avenue Q or Wicked. And hearing people sing show tunes number for musicals I’ve never seen is just not really that fun for me. But then they sang Take me or Leave Me from the musical Rent and well, that was wonderful. Because I’ve seen Rent. I could picture the characters and know what is happening in the story arch when I hear the song. I know the story, so that the song really means something to me…. whereas a song from Avenue Q is just …another show tune I’ve never heard.

This is why I am preaching today on the psalm we just chanted. Zechariah’s song. The Benedictus.

Recently I was asking a new House person what they thought of worship here. “It’s great”, she said…”Because I’ve always wanted my life to be like a musical where you never know when people are gonna just start singing…and your church is kinda like that”.

The first couple chapters of Luke’s Gospel are kinds like that too – a part of the Bible which reads like perhaps it were written by Andrew Loyd Webber because Characters just bust out singing all over the place. The Holy catholic and apostolic church has a long history of acting like a musical….mostly in her practice of daily prayer when the church sings the canticles. Like when Elizabeth is visited by Mary she sings a song, now known as the Hail Mary. Then in response Mary sings her song called the Magnificat which we sang Wednesday and is actually sung everyday at vespers, or evening prayer. Simeon, when holding the 8 day old Christ child in his arms fills the temple with his song Called the Nunc Dimittis, which has been sung by countless centuries of the faithful in the daily Compline liturgy; the final prayer before retiring to bed. But the song we sang today belongs to Zechariah, husband to Elizabeth…father to John the Baptist. it’s called the Benedictus, and is a song of freedom sung every day at Lauds, or morning prayer..

And here’s the back-story: His wife Elizabeth had conceived a son in her old age…that’s one the Holy Spirit’s favorite tricks by the way …making old ladies fertile. Anyhow, Zechariah knew this miraculous pregnancy was going to happen because he had been tipped off so to speak. He was doing his priestly duty and burning incense in the temple when the arch angel Gabriel in all his glory appeared before him. Which sounds nice…having angels visit you. But we aren’t talking the little chubby baby angels of bad Hallmark cards…we’re talking a powerful heavenly being who strikes fear in the hearts of everyone he visits. If that were’nt so Gabriel wouldn’t have to start every single conversation with a human with “Oh, don’t be afraid.” The arch angel Gabriel tells Zechariah the craziest thing: that Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth would conceive a son named John who would make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

And instead of just shutting up and nodding his head deferentially… Zecheriah does what I’m pretty sure I would do…he questions the angel’s authority. Zechariah says Um, are you sure because seriously…my wife is Old…how do I know this will really take place?

To which the arch angel says “Cause I said so and I am Gabriel for goodness sake” Then the angel made Zechariah mute until all these things had taken place. It was like a 9 month time-out for Zechariah. He couldn’t talk the entire time which is actually kinda wonderful.

So as his elderly wife’s belly grew large with child he couldn’t say a word. As Elizabeth’s kinswoman Mary visited and told of the child she herself carried and as Zechariah’s child lept in elizabeth’s womb he could not say a word. As the transgressive fecundity of God that would change the entire world grew in the wombs of an old lady and a virgin teenager he could not say a word. It was as though God said “you want to see what I am about? Well then…Shut up. watch and listen”

Maybe we too should take opportunities to just shut up, watch and listen for God’s redemption in forms we least expect to be seeing it. Maybe when our opinions and neurosis and pride and expectations about what the world owes us die down…maybe when we sit in this quiet of Advent we might begin to see where God is quietly and insistantlyt making all things new. Things we don’t perceive until we shut up for awhile. It was a gift really…this muteness of Zechariah’s. Perhaps the fact that he had to silently watch and listen prepared him to burst forth in song when he was finally able to speak. When his tongue was loosened he did not use it to justify himself or defend his position or to yammer on about himself…having been silent and watchful and receptive to the unexpected wonders of God he could not help but sing praise to God when finally he could speak.

This old man holds his new born son and sings of freedom. He blesses God for the ways in which God comes to us to free us. But freedom in this context is characterized not only by justice but also by the ability to worship God. Unfettered and unfiltered relationship between the creator and the creature.

This is true worship. Not vapidly stroking God’s ego as though God has low self-esteem and created us to remind him how great he is. But real worship - which is to see how God always comes down to us… interrupting our lives to insist on our salvation. That’s how God works. Interruption. Just when we get a comfortable thing going and we are humming along God says “that’s adoreable. but I have something else in mind. namely a radical new life for you and for all creation” Just when we are doing all the right stuff God closes our mouths until we see God’s faithfulness and burst out into song. Like Zechariah we become free to worship God. But that freedom comes at a cost. The price we pay for the freedom to worship God is repentance. It’s a little thing really. It’s just the simple matter of admitting that God is a God an well….I am not.

This is real worship. To sing of a God who remembers promises and who sets us free. We too sing of the very God who is not content to simply stand at a distance but insistently draws near to us in an unexpected child and in the waters of baptism and in the bread and wine at the table and in the community of saints who gather around God’s story. Advent is an invitation to identify with all those in the great Musical of the Gospel…all those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, and to carry good news to all those who dwell in darkness, in the shadow of death. Advent is an invitation to be prophets. An invitation to shut up and watch and listen in a real Silent Night until we can Sing like Zechariah that:

In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us,to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

This is the icon we created during liturgy over the 4 weeks of Advent. Every piece of this is from "Christmas" ads: circulars, catalogs and all that junk that comes in the mail and the newspaper. We created 1/4 of it each week. An Artist in the community traced the image onto poster board indicating what color should go in each shape. People ages 6-65 cut out the right color from the ads and glued it in the space. Easy and subversive.(photo by Lars Hammar)

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,

Nazareth? This is like God sending an angel to Commerce City. Nazareth is a nothing of a town.

to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said,“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

What kind of greeting is that Mary? Had you ever been called favored before? Mary. They are all called Mary aren’t they? Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary from Magdala, That other Mary and Mary the mother of Jesus. So common a name. Almost as though when the writers couldn’t remember a woman’s name they just automatically called her Mary. Like Jane Doe- it’s just this side of forgettable Mary. So common but yet now angelically deemed “favored one”. What kind of perplexing greeting is this calling a common Mary “favored one”. Did you look behind you to see if someone else named Mary was standing behind you? Mary; common and favored.

The angel said to her,“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God."

You found favor with God? Like you were looking for favor everywhere until bang! You find it with God? Or was it more like it is with God that you are the favored one though not so much favored elsewhere. We aren’t given a litany of all the things you did and personality traits you inhabited that made you favor-able. Perhaps it is the fact that you are chosen by God that makes you favored not that your favorableness made you chooseable.

"And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

In your ears, you a marginalized young Jew living in the midst of an occupied land are the words “throne …reign … kingdom” This is nothing less than cultural, political, religious and spiritual insurrection for the common to be favored and the favored to be common.

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her,“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Elizabeth: Barren and pregnant. One of God’s favorite ways to prove that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. God’s ways are not our ways…continually transgressing our polite family values. Elizabeth barren and pregnant. Mary common and favored. This is the transgressive fecundity of God. Willing life where there is no life. Making a way where there is no way. Messing with all of us in the way that only true mercy can do.

Then Mary said,“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”Then the angel departed from her.

Here I am you say …just like Isaiah after the coal touched his mouth. Here I am you say. Send me. Did it burn you too, like Isaiah’s own lips? Let it be with me according to your word you said. “Here I am, the Servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word”. So beautiful. We try and domesticate you Mary like a trinket of docile, submissive womanhood but you are bolder than that, more defiant almost. Some try to hide from their calling (Moses, Jonah, Elisha) but you said Here I am. Sign me up. Did you know what this word was going to mean for you?

And Mary said,(Magnificat is sung by Mary)

My soul proclaims the greatness of | the Lord, my spirit rejoices in | God my Savior, for you, Lord, have looked with favor on your | lowly servant. From this day all generations will | call me blessed;

Is that was being blessed looks like? We usually use that word a bit differently. You’re so blessed to have that new boat. So, Mary, how exactly are you using that word? Did you feel blessed as your unwed belly grew under the gaze of disapproving others. Did you feel blessed when laboring amongst sheep and straw? Mary, common and favored…Did you feel blessed when your heart dropped realizing you left your 12 year old in Jerusalem? At his arrest did you feel blessed seeing rope dig into the wrists of both God made flesh and the flesh of your flesh? Did you feel blessed when they lifted him up? No one else was his mother. Just you. Blessed are you among women. Common and favored. And blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus. God and Man. “We hail Mary, Queen of Heaven,” proclaims Martin Luther, “because in her we come to know that ours is the God who comes nearest to us in our brokenness.”

(again, sung)

you, the Almighty, have done great | things for me, and holy | is your name. You have mercy on | those who fear you, from generation to | generation. RYou have shown strength | with your arm; and scattered the proud in | their conceit, casting down the mighty | from their thrones and lifting | up the lowly. You have filled the hungry | with good things, and sent the rich | away empty. You have come to the aid of your | servant Israel, to remember the prom- | ise of mercy, the promise made | to our forebears, to Abraham and his chil- | dren forever.

There’s nothing like a song about upturning the whole social order to warm the heart. That or scare the be-jesus out of you.

So maybe that’s what God is up to here. Transgressing the boundaries of human society. Commerce City becomes Jerusalem. The favored become common and the common become favored. The barren are pregnant. The hungry filled. The rich, hungry. The proud leveled and the downtrodden lifted up until it’s all blurred past distinction. The prophet Mary sings in the new inverted reality of God’s kingdom on earth and this is it’s fight song. It’s your song, all of you. A song of this God who entered so fully into this muck of human existence and upturned our expectations and religiosity and self loathing and self satisfaction enough to usher in a new reality. And this reality is that God became one of us so that we might become children of God. Gregory of Nyssa writes, “What was achieved in the body of Mary will happen in the soul of everyone who receives the Word.” You, all of you, are blessed and full of grace. So, may the God through whom nothing is impossible help you to be Marys….carrying the gospel into this hurt and broken and beautiful world. May it be with you all according to God’s Word.

People keep asking me this question: "So, are you ready for Christmas?". What does this mean exactly? It could mean

"So, have you exchanged bits of paper and metal and plastic for other bits of paper and metal and plastic and then wrapped the new paper and metal and plastic in colored paper, marked them with the names of your family members and put them under a tree which has been cut down from where it grows but now stands in your home (or is also comprised of metal and plastic and lives the rest of the year in a box in a room under which it now stands)? And have you also combined food stuffs so that they have no nutritional value but make those who eat them magically become bigger each day that they are 'getting ready for Christmas'?".

Or does the question "So, are you ready for Christmas?" mean,

"So, are you fully prepared to receive the one who brings God to humans and humans to God by being both human and God?"

The answer to the first is "No. I haven't had time" the answer to the second is "I'm not sure I really can be"

Am I prepared for the coming of the Christ into the world? no. Am I ready? Absolutley.Some things we are never prepared for. They happen anyway.Am I ready to start a new worshipping community? yep. Am I prepared? Not at all. Oh yeah, I've read all the books and have completed my course work and have spent endless hours in emerging church communities, I have an amazing group of people who are committed to do this thing together etc, but I'm not prepared because I think prepared implies that I am aware of what will happen and know how to deal with it all. Seriously, I have no idea what will happen, which is as exciting as it is terrifying.

I'm ready for Christmas because after this season of Advent I really need to hear the story of Christ's birth again. I need to hear about how God enters fully into the muck of our existence and brings new life. I'm ready for that because I know that I need it.

Am I prepared for Christmas? No. There is no way for me to know how God will bring new life into this existence - here in this place, in this life, at this time. One thing I know is that, like the birth of Christ, it's won't be what I expect or what I think I'm prepared for.

Why is it that I feel the "finally!" of the first day of Advent more than on Christmas? Advent is finally here and this low, deep, sleeping silence of waiting is pure gift itself. I feel as though I get to float in the warm, embryonic waters of creation, waiting for birth, but content in the stillness. Then, in the very next moment I panic, and sink, limbs flailing -- feeling like maybe shopping really will silence the hunger pangs brought on by my binge and purge spiritual life. Surely God cannot come into this mess. Except for the fact that God always does.

Dear God,I will do just about anything but willingly hear your still small voice, your beckoning, your amazing and really hard to believe YES to us and to me and to all your creation. I wait for this tiny yet uncontainable yes of your light entering the world. This birth of holiness, this flesh of salvation in the muck of our existence. It is all I need and I bid you come. Even now. Even to me. Even to this place.In Jesus' name,AMEN.

This coming Sunday (3rd Sunday in Advent)'s gospel reading is a doosey. So John the baptist is doing his whole cool-but-weird prophet thing and telling the crowds to not be so complacent in their religiosity and to make their faith really mean something in the world. After which they're like, "ok then what do we do?" to which J.t.B. says to share your extra stuff with the folks who don't have anything and to not cheat or extort money. This is not exactly spiritual brain surgery. It's "Be a Good Person 101" if anything.
The difficult part is next. "I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire".( Luke 3 16-17 NRSV)

Here are 2 ways to look at this:
1) I'm "saved" and you're "damned" - Jesus is a comin' and he's gonna put all the good folks in his heavenly barn and the bad folks are gonna burn in the eternal fires of Hell (strangely enough, this is a position generally upheld only by people who see themselves as the "good folks")

2) Perhaps I should Thank God Jesus has the winnowing fork and not me because there's stuff about me that I'm sure is wheat, but that God may see as chaff and there has been chaff in me that I'm certain should be burned but which God seems to insist is still useful. To me there is great hope in this passage. The Holy Spirit is an unquechable fire which burns up the dead, useless stuff in us? Then sign me up! To me, the whole "Jesus with a winnowing fork" thing is cool. Winnow away.

A Prayer:
Dear God,
I'm lousey at knowing what in me is useful, so just use what you can and burn the rest...I'll try and stay out of the way.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

This first day of Advent has me wondering about waiting and disappointment. There's a certain deliciousness to waiting, in that when you're preparing for something to happen or to arrive, that time is filled with possibility. You have not yet been disappointed by the actuality of the event or object. As a child I remember the anticipation of what I would get for Christmas. My mom would give us the Sears Wish Book (a catalogue of Christmas gifts) and we would circle what we wanted, which we generally never actually got. It took me years to realize that my Mom didn't actually shop at Sears but at the "BX", (or "PX") at the Air Force Base. This is sort of like a discount store filled with last year's products and off-brands that went unsold at regular stores, or simply just random stuff that the military got a deal on. So we got whatever happened to be on sale at the PX, which pretty much never was the cool stuff in the Sears Wish Book,(this wan an economic necessity given our military pay). Herein lies the problem with Advent having turned into the period in which we wait for the holiday of Christmas, that glorious day in which we get to open presents and overeat - in this framework for waiting we're dissappointed by all the wrong things; bad gifts, lousy relatives, over dry turkey etc... when what we should be dissappointed in is the Christmas story itself, meaning that we never can predict how God will show up in the world. When advent is about waiting on God's incarnation into the world and into our lives, as it should be, then the outcome is much better. Don't get me wrong there is still disappointment in this story as well. The King of Glory coming to earth in the form of a ....drum roll please.....helpless baby of an unwed mother???? This is the kind of disappointment which illuminates God's upside-down kingdom on Earth. It is the kind of disappointment which satisfies like the fulfillment of personal desires cannot. This is a God of irony, which I find terribly comforting.
Dear God,
May we all be fulfilled with the the Holy Disappointment of Advent!
Save us from the idolatry of an American Christmas
In Jesus' name,
AMEN